Human Flower Project

Monday, July 02, 2007

A Latvian Goodbye

As the president of Latvia leaves office, she receives a floral send-off. That’s gratitude!

Latvia’s President Vaira Vike-Freiberga

greets her supporters in Turaida, July 1

Photo: Ints Kalnins, for Reuters

How can you tell people are civilized? When they develop a writing system? Plumbing?

One criterion, to be sure, is the capacity for public gratitude, preferably in the form of large displays of flowers. On this score, the people of Latvia prove themselves highly evolved. To wit, yesterday’s celebration honoring outgoing president Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

She served in high office eight years, longer than any other Latvian president. Her achievement is especially remarkable on a number of counts. Vike-Freiberga “was just seven when her family fled the Soviet invasion in the closing days of World War II. Their journey from Latvia was treacherous; some ships taking the same route were torpedoed and sunk. After living in disease-infested refugee camps in Germany, they eventually settled in Canada, where Vike-Freiberga’s first job was as a bank teller. She later became a respected psychology professor at Montreal University.

“After retiring in 1997, she boarded a plane and returned to Latvia to head the Latvian Institute. A year later, she’d been drafted in as a dark-horse candidate for president; shocking observers, she won. Some doubted the red-headed woman who had no political experience and who spent almost 55 years outside Latvia could make it in the male-dominated world of Latvian politics. But she’s now heralded as Latvia’s most popular and arguably most competent leader.”

A huge floral arrangement

honors a president’s service

Photo: Ints Kalnins, for Reuters

Such a person warrants a nation’s thanks, and yesterday Vike-Freiberga received it. She was honored in Turaida, 30 miles outside Riga, the capital. A gigantic floral arrangement made in her honor was refreshed throughout the ceremonies by rain showers. Attendants held an umbrella for the president, as she received one bouquet after another. Standing by, young women in Latvian traditional costume gazed with dignity on the scene from beneath floral crowns.

What a noble “thank-you” to a public servant. Here in the United States, second term presidents are referred to as “lame ducks,” likewise whether their first administration has been proud or shameful. As for outgoing ceremonies, we can’t remember one, except maybe Richard Nixon’s flailing salute as he boarded a helicopter to leave Washington in disgrace. Here in the U.S., the message is generally, “Don’t let the door smack you on your way out!”

In floral wreaths, part of the traditional Latvian costume,

citizens said farewell to President Vike-Freiberga

Photo: Ints Kalnins, for Reuters

In her final address to the Parliament, Vike-Freiberga, “called on parties to check their rank-and-file members and ‘separate the goats from the sheep’ in order to combat widespread corruption in Latvian politics.” Corruption or no, we also learn that “Latvia’s economy is the fastest growing in the European Union, which it joined in 2004. Last year GDP grew by 11.9 percent.”